by Kurt Magenta
A Tube and a trolleybus ride later, he was sitting in an office opposite the managing director, a Mr Bewkes, who had indeed heard of General de Gaulle and the Free French. ‘Certainly we can manage a discount,’ he said. ‘I’m a great admirer of the General’s. We’ll also need to get you a taxi to transport the thing. Cup of tea before you go?’
When the bill was eventually presented, it was 90 per cent cheaper than the price displayed at Harrods.
After that, Lucien was designated the bureau’s procurement specialist. Filing cabinets were needed, and then files to fill them with. Naturally, typewriters were required to generate the documents that would pad out the files.
About the only thing he didn’t procure was the telephone on his desk, which rang one morning. On the other end, a calm yet assertive voice. ‘Can you step in here for a moment, Cortel? I’ve got a task for you.’
The blue eyes were as frosty and forbidding as he remembered them. But this time, sitting in the same stiff pose behind the ugly walnut desk, Passy managed a sketch of a smile.
‘Not too crowded for you next door? The General has promised us larger quarters soon, but until then we’ll have to manage.’ The hands on the desk formed a shape like a book opening. ‘I’m sure you’ll prove a valuable asset in our dealings with the British, but since we won’t be meeting them every minute of every day, we must put you to work. You are very young…’
Not this again. ‘Yes, mon Colonel.’
The trace of sarcasm appeared to have gone unnoticed. Passy asked: ‘Have you heard about what’s going on in Cornwall?’
Cornwall – the rugged county in the far South West of England, whose inhabitants had more in common with the Bretons of France than with their fellow British citizens.
‘It’s remote,’ Lucien replied. ‘Vulnerable to attack.’
‘Certainly, but that’s not what I was referring to. For the past few weeks, a fairly large number of Breton fishermen have been stranded there: more than a dozen fishing boats in Falmouth, Penzance and Newlyn. Thanks to the fear of food shortages they don’t lack for work. Occasionally they fish close to the French coastline – very close. That makes them potentially useful.’
Lucien saw a glimmer of hope. ‘You’re sending me to Cornwall?’
‘Just for a few days. I need details: names and types of vessel, when they leave, when they return. But most of all I need to find out where the Bretons’ loyalties lie, how they feel about cooperating with us.’
Lucien sensed that this was a test of some kind.
Passy continued: ‘There is another…complication. Do you know who Admiral Muselier is?’
‘The name sounds familiar, but…’ he shrugged. ‘I’m afraid not.’
‘He’s leading the Free French naval forces. A Corsican.’ Passy pronounced the word with a hint of distaste. ‘For some reason, he has decided to think of me as a rival. Muselier already has a man down in Cornwall, liaising with the Bretons. If he convinces them to spy for him, I can’t be at all certain that he’ll share the intelligence. I need my own sources.’
Internecine rivalry, even in wartime. It was absurd, Lucien thought.
‘So,’ Passy concluded, ‘Penzance, incognito. I doubt anyone will recognize you, but we can’t be too careful. In here you’ll find a train timetable and some background. I want you down there by Monday. Duquesnoy will advance you some expenses from our meagre funds.’
Lucien gratefully accepted the slim buff folder and took it to his half of the desk next door.
But the day held one more surprise. In the evening, a hand-delivered envelope was waiting for him at home.
The note inside read: ‘Sat morning. Royal Victoria Patriotic School. NW edge Wandsworth Common. Between us. JM.’
The elusive Major Maddox. The tide was turning.
Chapter 8
The Patriotic School
After considering his options, he took the train from Victoria. Terraced houses turned their soot-stained backs to the railway line. But beyond the tangle of rails at Clapham Junction, the countryside began a stealthy incursion into the city. The steep verges along the track became overgrown and verdant. Wandsworth Common station was positively provincial: a trim red-brick Victorian building with a slate-tiled roof and scalloped white eaves.
He stepped from the train onto the platform, which was deserted apart from the elderly ticket collector.
Opposite the station, on the scrubby edge of the Common, a tall figure stood motionless, silhouetted against the sun. Lucien squinted, suddenly alert – until the man moved, stooping, a long shadow streaking across the grass as the dog bounded towards his outstretched arms.
Lucien smiled, glanced again at the sun and struck out in a north-westerly direction, assuming he would recognise a Victorian school when he saw one.
The Common was a wide expanse of green, rural in the English fashion, with none of the raked gravel walkways and statuary of French public gardens. This was a leftover patch of grazing land, the cattle replaced by dog walkers and weekend ramblers. Today it had an emerald purity under a spacious blue sky.
He walked on, feeling the tug of a childhood not long past – the urge to run here with a kite.
Finally, through a stand of trees, he glimpsed a grey spire topped with a weather vane. Then, as he advanced, yellowish bricks. He skirted the perimeter, looking for an entrance. When he had a clear view, he felt a familiar tingle in his limbs, as if he were about to commit to a fight.
The building was far bigger than he had imagined. It looked like a cross between a château and something more British, more baronial. It had a steeply pitched slate roof, mullioned windows and at least three spired towers that he could see: one on each side and a taller central tower that jutted out from the rest of the building, as if taking a warning step forward.
The sentry at the gate eyed him cautiously, his gaze resting for a moment on the tricolour insignia. ‘Can I ’elp you?’ the soldier asked, omitting the ‘sir’.
‘I’m looking for Major Maddox. He’s expecting me.’
Lucien showed his soldier’s pay book, which he had quickly learned served as a passport in such circumstances.
‘Very well. Not sure where you’ll find ’im though – it’s like ’Ampton Court maze in there.’
‘Thank you. I’ll manage.’
He strolled up the asphalt driveway, studying the building as he walked. In a niche just below the roof of the central tower there was a sculpture of Saint George plunging his lance into the gaping jaws of a serpentine dragon.
The portico was sandbagged, but the black-painted double doors were unlocked.
Lucien entered a wide flagstoned foyer. Straight ahead, a curving staircase. To the left and right, long corridors of whitewashed brick. An urge to move in a clockwise direction sent him to the left. The corridor was lined with rectangular windows overlooking a large courtyard. He guessed that if he kept walking he would soon arrive back where he’d started: this was a cloister.
The first door he came across bore a wooden plaque with the word ‘Caretaker’ painted on it – but it was locked. The second opened onto the empty shell of a classroom. The desks and blackboard had gone but the room was still redolent of chalk dust and misery.
More ghosts, he thought.
At the end of the corridor, another door. When he pushed it open, a wide space of richly varnished floorboards, with a stage at the far end. Light poured through the high wide windows and silvered the varnish.
Jasper Maddox stood in the middle of the room, staring up at the stage. For once he was in uniform, but with his hands in his pockets and his cap at a careless angle, he looked supremely at ease.
‘The smell of beeswax,’ he said, without turning around. ‘Quite Proustian, don’t you think?’
Finally he turned and approached, his footsteps echoing as he extended his hand. ‘Act
ually school wasn’t so bad, now I look back on it. Sandhurst was far more brutal.’
They shook hands. ‘What is this place?’ Lucien asked.
‘Just as I wrote, it is – or rather was – the Royal Victoria Patriotic School. For Girls, to be precise, now all safely evacuated to Wales. Very soon it will be a holding centre for those suspected of plotting against the empire.’
‘Spies? You’re going to detain spies here?’
‘Merely persons about whom we have a concern. As I told you, we can’t let the world and his wife into England without checking their bona fides.’
‘And you’ll be working here?’
‘Not all the time, thank the Lord, but it falls under my remit.’ He looked around and gave a mock shudder. ‘Let’s get out of here before I feel compelled to sing a hymn.’
As they walked along the cloister, Maddox asked: ‘So how were the camps?’ He noted Lucien’s surprised glance. ‘Oh, don’t worry, my boy – I’ve been keeping an eye on you. In fact I was rather wounded that you didn’t stay at Olympia a little longer. Still, you may be in a more advantageous position now.’
‘Somebody died there – a man who was with us on the boat. Did you know about that?’
‘In a moment. First, bring me up to date.’
Lucien shrugged. ‘The camps were a disaster. Half the time they didn’t want to let us in, let alone organise meetings. I’m pretty sure our posters were torn down the moment our backs were turned.’
‘And since then? You’re still at St. Stephen’s House, I know that much. But something tells me you’ve been reassigned. Far less coming and going.’
‘I’m working for a man who calls himself Passy.’
Maddox smiled triumphantly. ‘Of course you are. Espionage. A chip off the old block.’
They emerged into the grounds. There was a ripe odour of cut grass; bees ambled among the bright flowerbeds, sipping and moving on like connoisseurs at a wine tasting.
After listening to Lucien for a moment, Maddox said: ‘You will, of course, report back to me on everything you get up to in Cornwall. And at the Deuxième Bureau in general.’
For a moment Lucien was silent. He had been expecting something like this, but the smooth delivery was like a blade of ice slipped between his ribs. ‘You want me to become a double agent?’
‘Nothing so dramatic. I merely want you to do your duty. Your patriotic duty, I might add. Tell me, have you heard of the organisation the press call The Cowl? A rather silly nickname, I grant you, but The Secret Committee of Revolutionary Action is quite a mouthful.’
‘You mean les Cagoulards. A sort of freemasonry of Nazi sympathisers. Mostly business and industry – they’d rather see Hitler running France than the Communists. Some of them were arrested when they started talking about overthrowing the government. Most of them have been released since.’
‘That’s part of it, yes. But they also had an active armed wing. We know they were behind the bombing of three French synagogues in 1938. Last year they blew up a factory with the intention of pinning the blame on the Communists. Our worry now is that they have representatives in England.’
‘Among the Free French?’
‘Perhaps within the Deuxième Bureau itself. If I wanted to find out how the French intended to fight back, that’s where I’d be. Which is why I’m delighted to have an agent in place. As per our prior arrangement, I simply want you to keep your eyes open.’
‘Very well. But what happened to the Belgian at Olympia Hall? Was he part of all this?’
Maddox shrugged. ‘Heart attack, according to the hospital records. On paper he was just another refugee – an apothecary from Ghent. But let’s say, purely as a matter of conjecture, that the fellow was more chemist than pharmacist. And let’s say that, under an entirely different name, he once wrote an influential paper on the future of chemical warfare. I don’t think the Nazis would want such a man alive and running around London, do you? Of course, we can’t be certain that The Cowl or any other fifth column organisation was to blame. But sometimes I wonder if I see plots everywhere simply because there are plots everywhere.’
Lucien hesitated. Then he decided to take the plunge. ‘There’s a man named Vauthier. Lieutenant Arnaud Vauthier – he’s responsible for propaganda and recruitment at St. Stephen’s. I worked for him until a couple of days ago. I have a feeling about him. Nothing I can really put my finger on.’
‘Vauthier, you say? I believe I’ve met the man – he came aboard the ship just as I was leaving.’
Lucien nodded. ‘He saw the passengers. And he was at Olympia Hall the night the chemist died, a few paces away.’
‘Was he, indeed? Pretty thin stuff, it has to be said. You can’t denounce a chap just because you’ve taken a dislike to him. On the other hand, there’s such a thing as instinct, so keep him on your radar if you think there’s something rum about him. In fact…’ he paused.
‘Yes?’
‘You’ll be moving in French circles. Socialising with them. Drinking with them. Some of them are on our side – but by no means all. There’s a French embassy whose entire staff is leaning towards Vichy. Any snippets of conversation could be useful. I may even be able to pass you some funds for expenses.’
Lucien felt a tightness in his chest. ‘So I’m to spy on my own countrymen.’
Maddox looked at him sharply. ‘England is your country too, Lucien. You told me as much yourself. Don’t start wavering now.’
On the train journey back, the dark windows in the terraces seemed to scowl at him. Why was he so keen to serve Jasper Maddox? Certainly he owed the man a favour – but he knew that his real motives lay elsewhere. It was the old question of his dual nationality; his double identity. Not really English, never entirely French. He remembered the boys at school who had glimpsed his soul through his grey eyes and understood that he was different – a foreigner.
That was when the fights started.
So was this a form of vengeance? Spying for the English to get back at the French? A French word came into his mind: trahison. And yet somehow this didn’t feel like betrayal. If the French community in London had been infiltrated by Nazi collaborators, wasn’t it in everyone’s interest that they were rooted out?
Even so, he couldn’t shake the feeling that sooner or later he would be punished for his disloyalty.
Chapter 9
The Visitor
The gulls here were more paunchy and aggressive than the ones back in La Rochelle. A particularly nasty specimen eyed him from the bonnet of a car as he hurried past, the red splotch on its hooked beak both a warning and a threat. What are you looking at?
The weather in Penzance was challenging too. It was warm enough, but the sky was a smeared watercolour grey and there was a fine vaporous rain in the air.
He was out of uniform now and back in the clothes he’d brought from France: his brown leather boots – lately resoled and polished – plain twill trousers and a dark blue cotton shirt, along with the indestructible canvas jacket, which he hoped gave him a vaguely nautical air. Its waxed surface was already beaded with moisture.
The journey down from London had taken the best part of a day, and the light was beginning to fade. He advanced through the gloom, following the directions of the woman in the ticket office. Slate rooftops, rain-darkened granite, and at the bottom of the street a grimy and restless sea. There was a poetic French word for all this: grisaille.
He turned right at the seafront, the dank wind mussing his hair. Then he almost reeled in astonishment. Out in the bay, as if hovering on a cloud of mist, a castle rose from the waves. He thought immediately of Le Morte d’Arthur, the magical kingdom of Camelot. But a memory swept him back to reality: this was St Michael’s Mount, home to an ancient monastery – and the mirror image of Mont Saint Michel in Normandy. An island of rock linked to dry land by a slender promontory tha
t vanished at high tide. And now, he supposed, bristling with anti-aircraft guns.
Suddenly he felt thrilled to be here, in this strange place. On a secret mission.
He passed the fishing boats in the harbour, their bright colours washed out in the drizzle. Any of them French? On verra demain. We’ll see tomorrow. Let’s get dry first.
Penzance seemed to cluster around a low hill, crowned by an imposing church tower. He headed towards it, looking for Chapel Street. The inn couldn’t be far away now.
It was not the Admiral Benbow – that would have been too perfect. He had been reading Treasure Island on the train, filched from the collection of the absent Master Shaughnessy. Instead, the plain old Ship, a weathered sign swinging over the cobblestones and a cosy bar within. Polished brass and fishing nets. There was even a ship’s wheel (the helm, he said to himself, forever proud of his English vocabulary).
The bar reminded him of the Café de la Lanterne, which in turn led to Dédé, and inevitably to his mother and sister. How were they faring? He often wondered if there was a way of getting in touch with them. They were only across a short stretch of water – but already they felt like reflections, elusive and insubstantial.
He pushed these thoughts aside and reminded himself that he had a job to do.
‘A room for three nights, then?’ repeated the landlord, whose voice sounded as if it had been aged in oak. His face was as worn and creased as a much-folded map, his hair white and fraying. He was busy pulling a pint for another customer.
‘For a start, at least. I’m hoping to find a friend.’ No time like the present. ‘A fisherman, from Brittany. I heard he was over here.’
‘A few of ’em come in from time to time.’ He looked up from the pump and glanced around the bar. ‘Not tonight, though. In Newlyn, most of ’em. Got a name, your chum?’
‘Yannick Le Goff.’ It was made up – the Breton version of John Smith.
‘Can’t put a face to him. Still, wait around a bit and he might show up. Good excuse for a pint or two. Meantimes, Pammy’ll show you to your room. Won’t you Pam?’
